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Welcome to the pioneer and premier blog for serama lovers. LEASF is a one-stop-centre for the sales, art of breeding, healthcare, schedule of competition, R&D, consultancy and other matters related to the world’s smallest chicken, the exotic Malaysian serama bantams. Come and enjoy your stay with us. We hope our blog to be the most complete source of information concerning serama.

Feeding the American Seramas

What should I be feeding my Seramas and at what age do I feed the following:

When choosing what to feed an American Serama, there are a few different factors that need to be considered, such as your geographical location, the age of your Serama, and what your housing arrangements consist of.

The basic rule of thumb is feed them as you would any other breed of poultry, with a few exceptions.

Serama chicks should be started on a medicated chick starter, and many but not all brands of chick starter will require you to grind the feed to a smaller size so these ultra tiny chicks are able to consume the feed. Rule of thumb is newly hatched Serama chicks should be given a chick starter that is a little more course than powdered consistency for their first two weeks, after which they should be able to consume a normal sized chick crumble. There are some breeders who feed a Gamebird Starter, which consists of higher protein, without issues while others feel that the higher protein level is too much for a Serama chick and may possibly contribute to larger comb size in the males when they are finished birds.

You will want to feed your Serama chicks the medi-cated chick starter until they reach about 8-12 weeks of age, depending on your situation. The medicated chick starter contains a Coccidistat that helps give the chick coverage during critical times when they are more suscep-tible to Coccidiosis. It does not prevent Coccidiosis, but helps the chicks build immunity to Coccidiosis. When they reach about 3 months of age, switch them to a Starter Grower type of crumble. They should be fed the Starter Grower crumble until approximately 6 months of age, at which point they graduate to the adult layer crumble. There is some controversy over starting pullets too soon on a Layer diet. Some breeders feel you should wait until the pullet begins to lay before starting a Layer diet, while some other breeders feel they need the calcium the Layer diet offers prior to their laying their first egg.

Some factors to consider when you are raising your Serama chicks is, do you keep them on the ground or raise them off the ground? Are they brooded away from the mother hen or in a group of chicks? If you decide to let your hen hatch them out and raise them, a good rule of thumb is to supply the medicated chick starter for the chicks to consume, and a layer pellet for the hen to con-sume. This method ensures that the chicks will be eating the medi-cated chick crumbles and not the layer feed as the pellets will be too large for a chick to eat. Granted, the mother hen will also be eating the chick crumbles but that is OK for her to do so while she is brooding her chicks.

One more point regarding feeding chicks and how they are housed is chicks raised off the ground will not have the op-portunity to develop natural immunity by scratching the ground, being exposed slowly to small amounts of various diseases that naturally occur in the soil. You should use cau-tion when first placing a chick on the ground that has been raised in a sterile type of environment off the ground. They should have developed natural age immunity and hopefully have genetic immunity to a point, but not always, so you should observe them closely so you can act quickly should a health problem arise. The medicated chick starter is the key to helping chicks combat diseases that naturally occur in soil or bedding. Should you continue to use the medicated starter beyond 3 months of age? No. The reason being is prolonged use of a medicated feed actually deprives the bird of the natu-ral Probiotics it needs to combat daily the different viral and bacterial pathogens it will come into contact with, and actu-ally has a detrimental effect instead of a positive effect.

Additional feed supplements:

Many breeders feed supplements when conditioning for shows, or preparing a Serama for breeding.Probiotics are a good choice and there are many recipes that can be found online for homemade Probiotics or you may choose from many of the commercial avian Probiotics that are available on the market. Adding Probiotics daily to their diet or during times of stress or treatment from antibiotics or deworming helps reintroduce good gut flora, helping your Seramas rebound quicker and more efficiently. Vitamin & Electrolyte packs available commercially also greatly benefit your Seramas, especially during times of stress caused by transport, molt, breeding or showing.

Additional feed types and how they relate to Seramas:

One feed type to avoid is what is commonly called a Three Grain Scratch. This consists of very basic three grains, and is greatly devoid of the nutrition that your Serama or any other poultry needs to maintain a balanced diet. Three Grain Scratch should only be feed as an occasional supplement in colder weather or to poultry that are free ranged as a treat, and should not be the main diet of any poultry breed.Corn is a natural heat producer, and should only be fed in the colder winter months. If you live in a colder climate, and want to provide your Seramas with some natural heat on cold winter nights, adding cracked corn as a topping to their daily layer crumble can help them maintain consistent internal body temperature better in cold, inclimate weather.

Any time you feed a grain to a Serama or any poultry breed, you should also supply them with a calcium forti-fied grit. A Serama needs grit to help the gizzard grind up the grains and process them through the digestive track. Feeding a grain without grit can cause crop impaction, which can be a deadly situation.

Mealworms and wax worms make excellent treats that are high in protein for Seramas of all ages. Chicks from just a few days old to adult aged birds all enjoy a meal-worm or wax worm treat. The smaller sized worms are ideal for the young chicks, an adult Serama usually prefers the large sized, not giant sized mealworms. Fruits and vegetables are good for your Seramas as well. Alfalfa leaves are a good source of greens for them, as are sod pieces and sprouts.

One issue that seems to commonly occur when feed-ing Serama chicks is pasty vents. Why this occurs is still unknown, but one means of helping prevent this little bothersome issue is to add playground sand to their diet, right in with their crumbles, in a small amount each feed-ing. Some breeders are firm believers that this does rem-edy the pasty vent problem. If you are unable to obtain any fine white playground sand, be prepared to clean the vents on some of your Serama chicks during their first few weeks. Not clearing a pasted vent will nearly always cause death to the chick as it is unable to void correctly and completely, backing up its intestinal tract.

It is said that a free ranged chicken lacks nothing in nutrition; that Nature designed chickens to search out their daily requirements through their free range foraging. When you remove them from their natural ability to fulfill their nutritional requirements, you should always try to offer them the widest range of diet you are able to. Re-member, Seramas are Omnivores, meaning their diet con-sists of plant and animal products. The closer you can come to matching their nutritional needs, the healthier your Seramas will be.

[source : www.seramacouncilofnorthamerica.com]

Sexing of Day-Old Chicks

Sexing day-old chicks can be accomplished by one of two methods: 1) vent sexing or 2) feather sexing. Each method has difficulties that make it unsuitable for use by the small flock owner. Vent sexing relys on the visual identification of sex based on appearance of sexual organs. Feather sexing is based on differences in feather characteristics at hatch time. A brief explanation of each method is as follows.

Vent sexing of chicks at hatching has complications that make it more difficult than sex determination of most other animals. The reason is that the sexual organs of birds are located within the body and are not easily distinguishable. The copulatory organ of chickens can be identified as male or female by shape, but there are over fifteen different different shapes to consider. Therefore, few people have experience with determining the sex of birds because of the difficult nature of the process. Most of these highly trained individuals are employed by large commercial hatcheries. The training to be a chick sexer is so difficult and lengthy that the average poultry owner finds it unjustifiable.

Feather sexing is based on feather characteristics that differ between male and female chicks. The method is very easy to learn by the poultryman, but the feather appearances are determined by specially selected genetic traits that must be present in the chick strain. Most strains (breeds) of chickens do not have these feather sexing characteristics and feathering of both sexes appear identical.

The most convenient method of sexing chickens by the small flock owner is to care for the birds until they begin showing the natural secondary characteristics of their sex. In males, the combs and wattles will become larger than those on females and the head will become more angular and masculine looking. The female will remain smaller than the male and is more refined or feminine looking. In some varieties the feathers of each sex will develop a characteristic color pattern that identifies it. These varieties of birds are similar to the feather-sex strains of chickens discussed above. Sexing based on secondary sex characteristics can usually be performed after chicks attain 4 to 6 weeks of age.

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We are located in Bandar Baru Bangi, about half-way distance between Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) or Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) and Kuala Lumpur MetroCity. It takes 30 to 40 minutes by car from KLIA or LCCT to our place. About the same period of time you will spend if you depart from Kuala Lumpur City Centre, but sometimes, it may take be a bit longer due to traffic. So, plan your visit properly, if you are from Kuala Lumpur City Centre. You can easily find us on Google Map. If you take Kuala Lumpur-Johor Baharu Highway, the exit point to our serama farm is the Bangi, UKM toll.